Since it was invented by Sir David Brewster in 1815, the kaleidoscope has continued to fascinate generation after generation of children and adults. The ability to peer into the eyepiece of a simple and small device and discover and manipulate a seemingly endless field of ever-changing symmetrical patterns is something that has always had widespread appeal.
In its most basic form, the kaleidoscope consists of a tube encasing three elongated mirrors creating a triangular column. One end of the column forms an object window abutting a transparent rotating chamber containing an assortment of colorful bits of plastic or glass; this serves as the source material to be viewed and reflected. The other end of the column serves as the eyepiece. When viewed through the eyepiece, the triangular aperture of the object window affords a direct view of the source material behind it, and the surrounding mirrors produce a repeating pattern of multiple reflections of that image. The direct view and the reflections of it combine to produce a field of patterns extending to the edges of peripheral vision. However, since only one eye is afforded this view, the imagery produced is flat, or two-dimensional.
Several binocular kaleidoscopes in the prior art have introduced binocular viewing into kaleidoscope design. The term “binocular” however only refers to the use of both eyes, and does not necessarily imply stereopsis, or the sensation of depth. If a viewer uses both eyes to view essentially flat subject matter such as a photograph of a car, the amount of depth perceived is obviously limited in comparison to looking at the actual car. The more depth the subject matter has, the more parallax—i.e., the difference in the perceived position of a 3D object when viewed by the left vs. the right eye—there is, and the more depth that can be perceived. Of the previous binocular kaleidoscopes in the prior art none take full advantage of the possibilities of stereopsis.
In the case of U.S. Pat. No. 4,820,004 (Briskin), no mention is made of dimensional source material, no lenses are suggested to aid in focusing, no claims are made for stereopsis, and little would be possible because of the greatly reduced parallax inherent in the design. In the case of U.S. Pat. No. 5,020,870 (Gray), the source material on the disks or dishes suggested is either essentially flat or are not deep enough to introduce parallax, consequently only the internal reflections would provide any stereopsis. In the case of U.S. Pat. No. 5,475,532 (Sandoval et al.), no lenses are suggested to aid in focusing, and the arrangement of mirrors and windows allows for stereopsis only in a version large enough to be able to view through a single window with both eyes, necessitating a substantially larger and unwieldy device, and any subsequent stereopsis would be almost entirely comprised of the internal reflections as opposed to imagery framed by the windows. In the case of Int. Pat. No. 03/083516 (Wallach), no lenses are suggested to aid in focusing, and the only source material suggested are either a flat disk or a flat container, eliminating the possibility of significant parallax. In addition, the arrangement of two triangular cross-sectioned eye channels at an angle to one another could only produce stereopsis in a limited, harlequin-patterned portion of reflections covering only one third of the total viewing area.
In addition, these binocular kaleidoscopes all rely on physical objects as the source material to be reflected. Another possibility unexplored by them is to utilize stereoscopic imagery or video as the source material.
Several video kaleidoscopes in the prior art have been proposed, namely: U.S. Pat. No. 4,731,666 (Csesznegi); U.S. Pat. No. 6,062,698 (Lykens); and U.S. Pat. No. 7,399,083 (Bailey et al.). However, these are monocular and/or do not utilize stereoscopic source material, and therefore cannot produce stereoscopic patterns based on the source material.
Thus advantages of one or more aspects of the present invention are to incorporate source material providing sufficient parallax for significant stereopsis, and stereo viewing of both that source material and its internal reflections covering the entire foveal or central region of vision. In addition to stereopsis, an advantage of binocular viewing over monocular viewing is that small children have difficulty viewing material with one eye rather than two. Other advantages of one or more aspects are to provide for a device that is small, portable, handheld, simple, and inexpensive to manufacture. These and other advantages of one or more aspects will become apparent from a consideration of the ensuing description and accompanying drawings.